the most fucked up thing about married straight couples in paranormal reality shows is that the husband is almost always the skeptic and the wife will be like terrified to exist in her own home and she’ll beg her husband to believe her and she’ll be crying every night and he’ll straight up look at the camera and be like “I don’t know I guess I just thought she was imagining things.”
like this is beyond belief in ghosts what it comes down to is one member of these couples was so distressed they were in tears nightly or at least weekly, BEGGING their partner to listen to them, and their partner was like “whatever this’ll blow over.”
how does your relationship survive that?? how are these people still together?? if my wife came into the room crying and told me she’d seen bill watterson, author of acclaimed comic calvin and hobbes, manifest in our kitchen and tell her he didn’t like our wallpaper, I’d like. obviously have some questions. but I’d fucking address her distress and take steps to make her feel better lmao???
these husbands are all garbage and they feel justified bc they weren’t the “crazy one” who believed in ghosts.
they were the good, logical, “sane” spouse who did rational and good things like, completely and purposefully ignore their partners’ growing and life-altering distress for months.
reblog if you want bill watterson, author of acclaimed comic calvin and hobbes, to manifest in your kitchen and roast your terrible choices in wallpaper
I remember my wife often saying how exhausting it was for her to have to tell me what to do all the time. It’s why the sexiest thing a man can say to his partner is “I got this,” and then take care of whatever needs taken care of.
I always reasoned: “If you just tell me what you want me to do, I’ll gladly do it.”
But she didn’t want to be my mother. She wanted to be my partner, and she wanted me to apply all of my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household.
She wanted me to figure out all of the things that need done, and devise my own method of task management.
I wish I could remember what seemed so unreasonable to me about that at the time.
It’s not just about equal division of labor. It’s also about, “this thing is important to her. If he ignores it, he’s saying that what she wants is irrelevant to him.”
And that’s a guy saying, “I’m only spending time with you because it’s pleasant for me.” He’s already decided what’s “really” important, and her input is not welcome.
If he won’t do the dishes and laundry, he’s looking for fun, not a partnership. And his “leftist” ideals will be the same–something he studies because it’s interesting to him; a form of activism that he thinks will bring him a better life. If he can’t do household tasks that matter to a person he loves, he sure as hell can’t support policies that help people whose struggles he doesn’t even acknowledge are real.
If he’s a hopeless husband, she will always make him dinner and never suggest that he look after his own children. If he doesnt understand where the line is when it comes to harassing women, what’s friendly and what’s creepy, then she’ll give him the benefit of the doubt when he harasses or assaults. If he messes up simple tasks like washing his clothes and cleaning the house enough, she will take over out of exhaustion. If he states that he doesnt understand her feelings often enough, she’ll stop asking him to consider them.
Men play stupid because they’re lazy and entitled. They know they cant be blamed for their own supposed lack of understanding. Stop calling them clueless, helpless and stupid and start calling them manipulative.
Also the wives/gfs in this scenario have to find the magical right communication style. If she tells him to put the leftovers in an appropriately-sized Tupperware, she’s a nag or a control freak. If she asks him to clean up after dinner, then, oops, he just didn’t know. How could a grown adult know any better than to put two oz. of leftovers in a 2 quart container? Repeat for grown adults who didn’t know that laundry bleach isn’t laundry soap, that plants need an appropriate amount of water, etc. and the nagging-wife archetype starts to seem more like a reasonable-human one.
I’m infuriated by the learned helplessness of men in responsible careers, who apply reason and problem solving just fine outside the kitchen.
Rebellions are built on hope 